Back in April I lamented that Rogers Wireless’ implementation of “email to SMS” was, well, a pain in the ass. Because receiving an email by SMS required sending a “yes, I really want to read this” SMS back before the original email would be forwarded on.

In recent weeks Rogers has dramatically increased their storefront presence on the Island, fronted by AML Communications stores downtown in the Atlantic Technology Centre and uptown in the Charlottetown Mall, so I decided I’d try to see if anyone locally could tell me whether this “feature” can be removed.

And the news is good: Don Wills, from the Technology Centre outpost, did some research for me today, and in only a couple of hours was able to determine that Rogers can turn this off so that Rogers’ phones behave just like Aliant’s, with email appearing directly on the mobile phone without the intermediate step.

This makes the Rogers offering worthy of serious consideration; I’ll let you know how I proceed.

Have you noticed that this season in Charlottetown there are more men in their mid- to late-30s wearing hats (porkpie, fedora, etc.) than ever before? Just sit in Timothy’s for an hour and you’ll see most of them.

I watched David Letterman interview Paris Hilton yesterday. Although I’ve been drenched by the Paris Hilton meme as much as anyone, this was the first time I’d every actually seen her “in person.” It was, I think, a brilliant interview, mostly because Letterman was able to walk a line between his obvious contempt for Hilton and the realization that he is as much a part of the charade as she is. There were strong, strong echoes of Johnny Carson.

And my friend Oliver, currently living somewhere between North Carolina and California, thinks we should be sharing our cars. I’m up for it. But I call dibs on Saturday at the drive-in.

Meanwhile, Rob Hyndman, part-time Islander and full-time Hyndman, thinks we should be eating Flex Mussels. I don’t have a taste for mussels, but you gotta say the website is snazzy, especially if you’re a member of the “short, snappy and to the point” school of communication.

Martin Rutte, part-time Islander, full-time thinker, says we should be looking at aquanators as a possible energy solution for Prince Edward Island.

Did you know that there is a position at Tourism PEI called Familiarization Tour Coordinator? I think that’s about the best job title I’ve ever heard, and I think it more accurately describes, if expanded to include more than just PEI, the job I’ve been trying to create for myself for years.

My friend Kevin sent along an MP3 file this morning, with the comment:

Attached is a piece I recorded at Perry Williams studio last fall. I thought I’d offer it as an opening theme for your podcasts.

(I was chatting with Ray Brow while he was organizing the Eric MacEwen benefit and he said, “why not write a piece for Eric”. This popped out a little bit later and I called it “Big Eric MacEwen”.)

FYI, it’s two-tracked with three simultaneous chanels (two mics and the instrument plugged in) and then over dubbed (once) with the same three chanels but with the capo in a different position. The “magic” comes from Perry, he has techniques that brighten and separate the channels. He really is a sound chef.

Consider this a “toe in the water” podcast of the song, with thanks to Kevin for the generous offer.

The one way to be absolutely sure that I’ll actually do something is to watch and see if I publicly announce that I won’t be doing it.

And so, heeding the siren call of Air Canada, I spent the wee hours of this morning, between about 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., in a fuzzy haze of air ticket, hotel and conference booking, all towards getting me to Reboot 7.0 in Copenhagen next week.

Of course I ignored my own “book your hotel first” travel rule, and so about 2:15 a.m. I ended up with a confirmed, non-refundable air ticket, a paid-up conference registration, and no place to stay. Thrashing around various hotel and tourism websites, I put a couple of lines in the water before I finally fell into bed.

When I got up, 5 hours later, there were only “no room” rejection letters in my in-box, so I launched at it again before coming in to work. In the end, I found a room at the CAB Inn Scandinavia through the last-minute discounter RatesToGo. Although this felt a tad too much like buying drugs from a guy in the bus station, I was ready for anything by the time it rolled around.

You can follow along on the reboot website (here’s my profile, which uses the word tiny a lot — it was 3:30 a.m. after all). I’ll be blogging, podcasting, and making tiny ornate sketches throughout the event, so you can sit back and play the home game if you’re interested.

Oliver and I had a regular Wednesday night gig at the CARI swimming pool all winter long. We were planning to get back into the routine tonight, but found, to our dismay, that the leisure pool is closed for swimming lessons until 8:00 p.m. The silver lining is that from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. the leisure pool is open and the rate is reduced to $2.00 a person; a little too late for our purposes, unfortunately, but a good deal if you can make it.

The situation improves in a couple of weeks; until then, the pool is open around supper time on Mondays and Fridays and over the weekend.

The CARI staff person I talked to on the phone was super-nice.